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TUCSON, AZ (Tucson Weekly)–No one can knock
the numbers. In recent years, students at Tucson’s Sonoran
Science Academy have secured stellar scores in math, science and
other categories. The academy has earned glowing mentions in
national magazines such as U.S. News and World Report, and in
2009, was deemed Charter School of the Year by the Arizona
Charter School Association.
But some parents of children who attend the
academy on West Sunset Road believe it harbors goals reaching
far beyond academia. They suspect the Sonoran Academy of being
part of a confederation of learning institutions secretly linked
to, and advancing, the cause of Turkish scholar and Islamic
preacher Fethullah Gulen.
While most of those parents have resisted
coming forward, fearing reprisal from an organization they say
is known to target critics, one parent did agree to speak to the
Weekly if we pledged to keep her identity hidden. The parent
says she represents others at the academy who’ve become
suspicious about the striking similarities of its educational
programs to those of other schools around the United States
which are operated by Turkish-born staff members.
She says teachers and administers freely
circulate among these schools. At the same time, says the
parent, the Sonoran Academy seems constantly to be bringing
Turkish educators into the United States, and subjecting
students to substitute teachers while the teachers await work
visas.
According to this parent, all of these ties
may lead covertly back to the Gulen movement, named for the
scholar, who founded a network of schools around the world and
now lives in exile in Pennsylvania. She says several Sonoran
Academy parents believe the school has a hidden agenda to
promote Gulen’s brand of Turkish nationalism, advance sympathy
for that country’s political goals such as winning acceptance
into the European Union, and discourage official acknowledgement
of Turkey’s genocide against the Armenians during World War I.
“We found one document, in Turkish, that
talks about the purpose of these charter schools,” says the
parent. “They refer to them very explicitly as schools
(belonging) to their movement. They’re calculating, and they say
if they can have something like 600 schools, then every year,
they can produce 120,000 sympathizers for Turkey.
“I sent my kids to this school because I
wanted them to meet regular Muslims and to see them as ordinary
people,” she says. “But when I find that my kids are to be
turned into genocide-deniers, that’s very disturbing to me.”
Fatih Karatas is principal of the academy’s
middle school. He calls such claims ridiculous.
“We don’t have any kind of connections or any
kind of relations with that movement or group. A public school
cannot be affiliated in any way with other institutions or
groups because of the regulations, because of the charters.”
He also says his school has a diverse staff,
native to countries ranging from Turkey to Mexico, which he
considers a benefit. “But we’re not promoting a certain
ideology. … These are defamatory allegations that are not based
on any proof or evidence.”
Still, the Sonoran Academy isn’t the first
Turkish-American-run charter school in United States to be
accused of links to Gulen. Parents at the Beehive Science and
Technology Academy in Holladay, Utah, have also raised concerns
that their school is linked to this movement. And according The
Salt Lake Tribune, one Beehive teacher was fired when his lesson
plan about World War II and the Holocaust prompted a discussion
in which the school’s principal purportedly questioned that
genocide.
Although Utah’s State Charter School Board
cleared Beehive of deliberately promoting Gulen beliefs,
lawmakers there have continued to probe its finances. The
school-board investigation revealed that Beehive received loans
from administrators at other Turkish-American schools, and from
executives of the Accord Institute, a California-based
organization with a Turkish-American staff. Accord provides
educational consulting services and develops education models
for programs for schools including Tucson’s Sonoran Academy. But
Karatas, calls the institute a “private organization,” and says
he’s unaware of any ties between Accord and Gulen.
Other connections raise more questions. They
include the Pacifica Institute, which operates the “Turkish
Olympiads,” in which Sonoran Academy students are encouraged to
participate. The Olympiad contests range from essay writing and
singing to poetry composition. According to its Web site, the
institute was formed by Turkish-Americans in California with a
mission of promoting cross-cultural awareness.
In December, the Pacifica Institute co-hosted
a Gulen conference with the University of Southern California,
and actively promotes Gulen beliefs on its Web site.
Indeed, the Gulen movement’s own Web site
seems to lay the groundwork for claims made by the Tucson
parent. It discusses the group’s rapidly expanding, worldwide
educational facilities which have “made Gulen’s network the most
influential Turkish-Islamic movement both in Turkey and abroad.
… In the field of education, this part of the identity is
however not stressed and teachers from outside the (movement)
work at these schools as well. They may be non-Muslims and in
many cases the pupils have never heard of Fethullah Gulen.”
The Tucson Weekly was provided with a list of
Turkish staff members that have rotated through various schools
and the Accord Institute—another strategy promoted by the Gulen
Web site.
Of course, all of this could be purely
coincidental. But the Tucson mother says many parents feel
increasingly betrayed by what they consider the Sonoran
Academy’s ongoing secrecy.
“Other parents say, ‘I could almost be OK
with this if they were out in the open about it.’ But the
(school) has done such a phenomenal job of keeping this a
secret.”
However, Karatas suggests those who make such
claims are flirting with trouble.
“I’m hoping that they know that these are
defamatory allegations which may put them in trouble later on.
These are excelling schools. … I hope they are aware of what
they’re doing.”
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